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Elizabeth Weintraub
The No Drama Sacramento Real Estate Agent
Arthur Burke, a real estate agent in Sacramento has, on more than one occasion referred to me as the No Drama Sacramento Real Estate Agent. Probably because there are real estate agents who will yell and scream to get their point across, but I’ve never found that approach to be necessary. The truth is everybody knows you get more attention if you whisper. Does that stop some agents from bellowing at each other or their clients? Logic would say yes but logic doesn’t govern real estate nor some Sacramento real estate agents.
I recall once driving down I-80 with the top down on my car and my right hand trying to steady a giant cat tree in the seat next to me — not the safest thing to do with cars whizzing by at 75 MPH — when my phone rang. Even though that was not the most opportune time to answer my cell, I was wearing a hands-free Bluetooth device. The problem was I could answer it only if I temporarily removed either my right hand from the cat tree or my left hand from the steering wheel. It’s not like I couldn’t talk and drive at the same time, but trying to do so with a 6-foot high cat tree wobbling in the seat next to me probably wasn’t the smartest thing to do. If all of us always made the smartest decisions possible, though, Bandaids would go bankrupt.
Using my elbow to steer, I answered my cellphone. I had a lot of deals in escrow, many of which were short sales, and when banks call, a Sacramento agent better answer because she might not ever get back through to the negotiator. The bank’s call-back number isn’t just an 800#, it also involves a series of digits for an extension, sometimes up to 7 numbers, plus you need to know the last four numbers of the seller’s Social Security, including their middle initials, and the complete property address with correct ZIP code. Knowing I did not have any of that information available at this time as I sped past the bottleneck mess at the 99 South exit, I did not feel the least bit anxious about answering my phone.
It was a Sacramento real estate agent, and I won’t mention where she works because you might figure out who it was, and I’d rather not have to talk to her again. High, shrill voice. Screaming with accusatory tones. I had not spoken to this person for months. It took a while to figure out why she was calling and why she was so angry. She was upset because a seller she was representing had asked me to do a CMA for a home this seller owned elsewhere. I tried to explain that I did not call the seller, I did not solicit the seller, and we did not discuss the home the seller presently owns. After all, the seller is free to choose a different agent to sell a different property. Nobody owns a seller.
It made me wonder how this agent became a top producer when she screams at people. It’s one thing to scream when you’re right, which is not really justifiable, btw, but it’s another to scream when you’re wrong. I also tried to explain that this was not really the best time for me to be discussing our mutual client while driving down the freeway with this cat tree in the car.
She then began to scream at me for answering my phone.
There’s only one thing to do with these kinds of people. Click.
That action involved removing one hand from the steering wheel again. It didn’t feel like a life threatening situation at the time. Staying on the phone sounded like a life threatening situation. Whenever I see this agent’s name, I recall the experience in which I concluded I would rather face death than continue speaking to her. If anybody ever said that about me, I’d want to curl up and die. And that is one good reason I don’t scream at people. I don’t mind being known as the “no drama” Sacramento real estate agent.
Elizabeth Weintraub and Led Zeppelin Do Facebook With Downton Abbey
Admitting outloud in public that I don’t much like Facebook is like the day I tore my Led Zeppelin album off the turntable in the middle of a party and spun it like a Frisbee into the street. All of my party guests stopped flicking the Bic to light whatever they were smoking and stared at me with dropped jaws. Their gazes traveled from the opened front door to my defiant face and back. They were astonished.
That was a sacrilegious act. But you know what? There are only so many times that a reasonable person can listen to Stairway to Heaven before her mind begins to decay. And for crying out loud, it was my album. I tried pleading with my guests to play something else but nobody was listening. You would have thought I was begging for the Bee Gees when I really wanted to jam to Janis Joplin. But the only way to get Janis Joplin on the turntable was to get rid of Led Zeppelin. So, out the door with it. Imagine the guy driving down Balboa Boulevard on the Newport Beach Peninsula who suddenly spots a 33 LP spinning toward his windshield. See, we just didn’t think back then.
That was BF, before Facebook. With Facebook, you really don’t ever have to think again. You just click. I have all these people on my personal page, and I don’t know where they came from or who they are, so I’ve stopped accepting new friends. Because these people are not my friends. How can they be a friend if I don’t know them? Even some of the people I call my friends whom I do know I don’t particularly like. Yet, I have all of these people on my page, and they all submit crap that I can click through if I’m completely bored.
I started a business page on Facebook, too. Because I was told that I had to do it if I wanted to stay socially relevant. After trying to upload a few photos and making a mess out of it, I have given up. Just leave me to uploading photographs of homes I list in Sacramento to MLS and other websites such as Zillow and Trulia and let me be content with that. Let me blog. Let me write for About.com about homebuying. Let me send my new listings and my personal blog to Facebook for you. Let me send a Tweet every day to Twitter.com. You want to chat with me, you can pick up the phone or send me an email or a text message. I am simply unwilling to communicate with you through Facebook. If that’s blasphemous to you, I have no regrets. You can go listen to Barry Manilow. You should go “like” the Facebook page for Led Zeppelin.
That’s what you get from a Sacramento real estate agent who would throw away Led Zeppelin. However, there is one exception. That’s when some clever soul creates a Facebook parody, and it’s so accurate that you can’t stop laughing. If you have been glued to Season 3 of Downton Abbey, I suggest you check out this website If Downton Abbey Took Place on Facebook. You can thank me later.
Sacramento Sellers With Equity a New Trend!
You know how sometimes when your phone rings, and you either hear the phone number repeated in your ear, because you’re wearing a Bluetooth device, or you look at your phone and either way think to yourself: Oh, rats, nothing good can come from this, but you answer your phone anyway? OK, maybe you’re not in real estate then nor a Sacramento real estate agent like me. But I admit that I have, on occasion, fostered preconceived notions about who is calling me because so often I am correct about the fresh hell. There are times I do regret answering my phone and then there are other times that I am pleasantly surprised. It’s the trade-off for being proactive in this business.
Lately, what I’m finding is I am talking to more and more sellers with equity who want to sell their home in the Sacramento area. That’s a very good sign that our market is beginning to rebound and could be a new trend. I love working with sellers with equity. I would not say our Sacramento real estate market is recovering in leaps and bounds and you can get all crazy and ask whatever price you want for your home — because it’s not and you can’t — but the market is definitely turning the corner and the upward trend points to equity sellers. For the past 7 years, about 80% of my listings have been short sales. In 2012 alone I closed around 165 sides of which 129 sides were short sales. That still works out to about 1 out of every 5 is an equity sale, a seller who is not upside down.
I am predicting that if things continue on the same path I see now, my listing percentages for 2013 will be 1 out of every 3 sellers will be sellers with equity. I’d like to see at least half, you know, 50 / 50, but I suspect we have a ways to go on that. Who would have thought 7 years ago that a listing agent today would be so saturated with short sales that she’d almost forget what it was like to do a regular transaction? The pure joy?
I’ve learned so much about listing and selling homes in Sacramento from selling short sales that I can’t begin to tell you what an education it has been. I’ve learned a lot over the almost 40 years I’ve been in this business, no grass grows under my feet, but my extensive short sale experience has definitely made me a stronger and better real estate agent. If I can sell a short sale, I can sell anything. I can sell that empty cup from Starbucks you’re clutching. You need a home sold in Sacramento? You call this Sacramento real estate agent: Elizabeth Weintraub at 916.233.6759. I answer my phone. Even if I regret it at times.
Does Your Sacramento Agent Charge Too Much?
How would you like to be in a business in which a potential client asks you to come over to her house, in the dark and cold after business hours, so she can pick your brain without making any kind of commitment and argue about how much you charge? Thousands of sales people do this every single day. It’s not that much different for a Sacramento real estate agent, either. I’m fortunate in that most people who call me have already decided to hire me, so when they make an appointment for me to view their home, it’s because they are ready to go on the market. I would not want to stay in this business if every single appointment was a 33% chance of being hired because the seller had to interview 3 real estate agents in Sacramento before making a decision.
Not because I couldn’t outshine and win the business because I perform well against the competition, but because the odds are against my favor, so I’d eventually want to stop doing it. 100% or long shot? Which is smarter? Given the choice of visiting a seller because she tells me she wants to hire me or visiting a seller who is not sure what she wants, which do you think a Sacramento real estate agent prefers to do? Which would you want to do?
One thing sellers like to discuss is how much it will cost them to hire a real estate agent. I don’t blame them, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, I used to think the commission was a big deal. It’s not a big deal. Especially if you’re apart by only 1% of the sales price.
Oh, sure, you say, easy for you to roll off the tip of your tongue because it’s not your money, it’s the seller’s money, but I’m telling you it’s not a big deal. It’s a far bigger deal how much a seller gets for her home. The sales price and the agent’s ability to market and negotiate for the seller — to be that seller’s advocate and fiduciary and try to get the seller the highest price possible — that’s far more important.
I have never had a seller tell me I charge too much. I have never had a seller tell me she didn’t get enough for her home and that I should have worked harder for her, because I would be crushed. It’s never happened. Knock on wood, it never will happen. I focus on the seller’s needs and the seller’s rights — that’s the secret of my success.
I did have a former neighbor once tell me after he closed escrow that he picked a friend of his instead of hiring me because his friend charged him 1% less than I proposed. But you know what, he made 12% less on his sale than I would have directed him to do. He gave up many thousands in profit in exchange for that little tiny 1%. To put it into perspective, he lost almost $30,000 over that bad decision. Sellers should not look at the small percentage an agent receives for the work she does but instead should focus on the huge percentage they make selling the home. Experience doesn’t cost, it pays. Hire an experienced agent you trust and that’s all you need. Don’t be penny wise and pound foolish.
Can you always find an agent somewhere who will charge a little bit less than a veteran with many years under her belt? Sure, you can. It’s in the nature of the beast. Is it in your best interest? Probably not. It’s just not enough to work yourself into an anguish over.
Why You Should See Searching for Sugar Man
Searching for Sugar Man, by director Malik Bendjelloul, is like a fairy-tale story come true, one of the coolest and astonishing movies that happens to be real. It’s an Oscar-nominated documentary about an unknown guy with an extraordinary talent who became a sensation in another country, yet he didn’t know about it for decades. He was living a simple life in Detroit, doing construction work and bricklaying, all the while he was a famous musician in South Africa.
Warning, possible spoiler: I hope that I am not giving anything away anything crucial by disclosing the movie starts out by making you think the guy is dead. That he committed suicide. That he lit himself on fire on stage one night or, if you listened to another report, shot himself in the head after somebody heckled him. Then, you find out he’s not dead after all.
And the thing is his music is good. He wrote insightful, meaningful lyrics that resonated with people, touched souls and hearts. Why he didn’t become famous in America all those years ago is a big mystery but he did become a star in South Africa. Without his knowledge. While I watched the movie, it dawned on me that Sixto Rodriguez, this rock star who wasn’t dead, was probably about 10 years older than me, and I pretty much hit the nail on the head. Much of his music was recorded in the late 1960s, early 1970s, during my teenage years, so it probably carried more relevance for me than it would for a person who grew up a different era.
There are many levels to this movie that will touch you, though. It’s not just a story about a guy who became famous and didn’t know it, it’s also about how he influenced a nation, what his music meant to the people of South Africa. What those songs still mean to them today. It’s about a man who doesn’t seem to let fame or money change who he is — he still lives in Detroit in the home he bought for $50 at a government auction in the mid 1970s. He plays sold-out concerts at huge stadiums in South Africa. He gives away his money.
Searching for Sugar Man is inspirational. It won the Producers Guild Award this weekend for best documentary. You can get it from Netflix. You can also see Sixto Rodriguez perform in person at upcoming shows at Carnegie Hall, Royal Albert Hall, a handful of European festivals and yes, more Cape Town concerts next month. You can buy Cold Fact and Coming From Reality as CDs online. I promise you won’t be disappointed.
